by Tony Healey
Two dozen townsfolk were there dressed in black. The sheriff and his deputy. The doctor, the general store owner and his wife. All the people her brother and his wife, Celia, had had dealings with over the years. Her eyes met Jack Denton’s. He was staring at her and didn’t look away. It was hard to determine the emotion on his face. It could just have easily been a look of disdain or regret. She peered past him, to the rear of the congregation. Ethan in a black suit, a white shirt, a hat in his hands and bald head on show. Myra noticed that he did not wear his gun belt. In fact there were no weapons present at the funeral on anyone. Not even on the waist of the sheriff or his deputy.
“There will be drinks at the saloon for those who wish to raise a glass and remember the departed,” the pastor said. “Charitable donations to aid us in fixing the church roof are gratefully accepted also.”
They just can’t help themselves, Myra thought, not without humor. Even at a funeral they’re hustling the congregation.
She was the last to take a handful of the dirt to scatter over the caskets of her family. As everyone else wandered off, she stood at the edge of the hole that had been dug and opened her hand, watching the dark brown grains sprinkle down onto the dirt-strewn coffin tops.
Finality.
That was the word that sprang to mind. She’d heard the pastor say the words “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” but it occurred to her that it would have been more appropriate to say “dirt to dirt” since her family would eventually become a part of the soil that would surround them.
Sheriff Abernathy appeared at her side. He looked genuinely aggrieved. “I’m awful sorry, Miss Hart. Your brother, Glendon, and his sweet wife . . . they were good people. I don’t just say that. They were honestly good. Very rarely you find that in a person.”
“Thank you, Sheriff.”
“The children, too,” Abernathy said. He removed his hat and looked down. “It’s an awful business, all this. An awful, awful business.”
Myra drew a deep breath of cool air. “Are you joining us at the saloon?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Abernathy said. He offered her his arm. “Care to let an old man walk you down there?”
She hooked her arm through his. “Lead the way, Sheriff,” she said, glancing back at the hole in the ground and thinking how soon it would be filled back in. Holes opened and then closed, always leaving a scar.
* * *
* * *
Jack Denton had looked at Myra and felt something stir within him—not remorse or regret, as she might have suspected given the expression on his face. What he felt was a need to finish what he’d started. Here was a living, breathing problem he had not anticipated, and it bugged him. Sending the girls to kill Hart and his family had been the last resort as far as Denton was concerned. The end of a long period of time trying to persuade Glendon, trying to bring him over to his way of thinking, making the man numerous offers before turning those offers into threats. It was inevitable, really, that those threats would result in action—and unsurprising that Jack Denton would not simply sit back on his hands and watch a good thing pass.
Only one man and his family had stood in the way. Denton learned long ago, back when he’d been known as Bertrand Woodward, that lives were like match flames. As easily extinguished as they were struck into existence.
So he’d simply had the Harts snuffed out.
But now Myra stood in his way. And when he looked at her burying her family in a big hole in the ground, Denton felt the same way he did when he saw a loose thread hanging from a sleeve—the undeniable urge to pluck it free. To keep things neat and tidy.
Last night Mikhail had returned to the ranch with his tail between his legs, telling Denton he’d failed to kill Ethan. That he’d been stopped by Deputy Boyd Mitchell and had to flee or be taken prisoner.
Denton knew what this meant. There would be questions now. He would be expected to answer them. Sure enough, as the service finished up, the mourners heading to the saloon for drinks, Mitchell touched Denton’s elbow to draw his attention.
“A word?”
“What is it, Deputy?” Denton demanded.
Mitchell glanced back at Myra Hart, in conversation with the sheriff, their backs to them. “Look, I don’t want a scene here. Not today. Not in these circumstances. I doubt you want that, either.”
“Boyd, what’s this about?”
“Walk with me.”
The two men headed down the hill. Denton looked about for the new man in town but saw no sign of him. Denton knew he’d been standing behind him throughout the service, but he must have cleared out before the end. There’d been bruising to the man’s face, but apart from that, he seemed right as rain. It seemed to him Mikhail had come off no better than the man he’d been sent to kill.
“There was an incident last night.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, at the livery. A man was attacked around midnight. I arrived on the scene, but the assailant got away before he could be detained.”
Denton made a show of checking his pocket watch. It was the fancy kind, on a long silver chain. He’d found it in the real Denton’s belongings after he’d buried the body. Inside, inscribed on the shell in looping script, was “Happy Birthday, Jack,” which was ironic since he didn’t know Denton’s birth date. “This is all very interesting, Deputy, but I fail to see how this relates to me.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, would you?”
“In what manner?”
Mitchell said, “As in knowing the identity of the attacker. He spoke with a thick Russian accent. Does that ring any bells for you, Mr. Denton?”
“I cannot say that it does,” Denton said, voice full of snark.
“The man was huge.”
“Fat?”
Mitchell was getting annoyed now. “No, big in all directions.”
“Don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Deputy Mitchell took Denton’s elbow again “To be clear, you don’t have a Russian in your employ?”
“If I did, I would tell you,” Denton said, shrugging himself loose of Mitchell’s grip. “Please mind the suit, Deputy. It’s worth more than your yearly salary, I’d imagine.”
Ignoring the insult, Mitchell said, “You’d tell me, huh? I doubt it.”
Denton looked at the deputy with indignation. “I have only ever been courteous to you, Deputy. I have only ever supported the law enforcement of this town. Look at the thanks I get. Suspicion. Allegations against my character. . . . If I didn’t know better, Boyd, I’d say you had it in for me.”
“This isn’t personal,” Mitchell said. “It’s my job.”
“No,” Denton said, holding up a finger, “it’s the other way around. It’s your job but you’re making it personal. I think you need to recognize the difference.”
“Mr. Denton, if you did have a Russian in your employ, would you ever find yourself of a mind to turn him in?” Mitchell asked.
Denton shrugged. “If I did have such a man on my payroll and considered him to be a threat to others, of course I would. But I do not and so shall not. Now if you will excuse me, Deputy, I have a wake to attend.” He walked away, his demeanor leaving no room for doubt that he would not entertain the deputy’s questions any longer.
* * *
* * *
The saloon’s proprietor, Brett McBride, laid on a somber wake for the Hart family—some food, beer and the best whiskey he had to hand. “I’ll cover any cost. Expense is no concern,” Myra had told him. After all, she would bury what remained of her family only once. The usual barflies were not in attendance. That had been her only stipulation: that the only people allowed there were those who’d attended the funeral or otherwise paid their respects if they hadn’t been able to make it. The bums who usually hung around at the saloon because they had little better to do were going to h
ave to occupy their time in some other way.
“Old Lew can play most tunes,” McBride had told her, gesturing toward the beat-up piano in the far corner of the saloon. “Most it’ll cost you is drinking money.”
Lewis had been the resident piano man at McBride’s saloon for as far back as anyone cared to remember.
“He can play whatever he likes so long as he keeps the piano going,” Myra instructed him.
McBride dipped his head. “As you like. I’ll make sure he doesn’t play anything too rambunctious.”
The saloon was crowded. Myra thanked anyone and everyone for attending, knowing that engaging in small pleasantries would occupy her thoughts beyond the ceremony that had just been performed atop the hill. The hole containing the bodies of her family being steadily filled in with fresh soil. Bercow, the town’s undertaker, expressed his sympathies, and Myra thanked the man for a service free of hiccup or incident.
She poured him a glass of whiskey. “There you go.”
“Thank you kindly,” he said, eyeing the honey-colored liquid in the glass. “I haven’t touched a drop for twenty years. But I guess now is as good a time as any to indulge.”
Myra watched him toss it back in one go. She refilled his glass immediately and Bercow drifted off to mix with the others. Somebody sidled in next to her, and Myra turned on her heel with a smile on her face.
The man next to her picked up an empty glass. “Is there more where that came from, Miss Hart?” he asked. He offered her his other hand. “Forgive me. I’m Jack Denton.”
Myra tried to keep the dread out of her voice, to stop her vocal cords from wavering.
“Pleasure to meet you,” she said, shaking his proffered hand.
“So is there?”
Myra frowned at him, momentarily confused. “Is there . . . what?”
Jack Denton smiled. “More where that came from.”
“Oh! Of course,” she said, pouring whiskey into his glass.
“Thank you kindly.”
Myra cleared her throat. “I didn’t expect you to come to the wake.”
“To honor the dead? Of course. I take it you know who I am.”
She set the bottle down. “Yes, I have heard your name.”
Myra felt her throat tighten, coupled with the sudden need to drink something—anything—to lubricate it enough to continue speaking. She poured herself a glass of whiskey and drank some.
“Are you all right?” Denton enquired. “Why not take a seat? I would imagine that today has been a veritable tornado of emotions, Miss Hart.”
“I’m fine.”
“Very well, then,” he said. “I must say, I was very fond of Glendon. I tried on several occasions to purchase his land—I am sure he made you aware.”
“He did.”
“Well, he wouldn’t budge,” Denton said without obvious malice. He inspected the whiskey, then took a long swallow. “I do respect a man who stands his ground. Glendon had real grit. I give the man that. Not something you see all that often.”
Myra felt the room spin. The whiskey had gone to her head, which she preferred to what she felt in her heart: the aching, the deep, deep loss. But none of that compared to the sickness she felt at Denton standing so close. The audacity of the man, talking to her, telling her how much he had liked Glendon.
“He was one of a kind. I had no idea he had a sister,” Denton said. “I wonder if you possess the same grit as he. But then again, I look at you now and I see that you do. I see it in the way you hold yourself, in your direct manner. Your lack of fear.”
She did not say anything.
Denton pressed on. Speaking casually, as if he were conversing with a man in the street about the unseasonable weather. “Tell me, did he leave you his land?”
“I am his only kin,” Myra answered flatly. Not at a wake, she thought. He can’t be this disrespectful at a damned wake.
But he was.
“So in that case, then, it’s all yours.”
Myra swallowed. “I guess so.”
“And you’ll be looking to sell up?”
“Not straightaway, no,” Myra said.
Denton frowned. “Why?”
“Why what?” Now Myra felt her patience slipping. Was he really trying to press her when she’d literally just buried her brother and his family? Somehow, the sense that she was falling slowed, and things stabilized in her mind. Myra felt a sudden, unforeseen calm wash over her, as if she were experiencing a moment of pure clarity.
Denton hadn’t noticed the change in her. His mouth was still running, unimpeded by good manners. Reeling off a predetermined script that clearly Denton thought would work like a charm in convincing Myra to sell. “A house like that . . . all those bad memories. . . . Why wouldn’t you want to sell up and move on?”
Myra drew herself up. “Because that place has just as many good memories as it does bad? I have to say, Mr. Denton, I find it very unsavory to be discussing matters such as these at a wake. I thought you would have more decorum.”
“I’m merely talking sense.”
Myra ignored the comment. “Besides, I would not sell to you.”
“Excuse me?” Denton appeared taken aback. “Why wouldn’t you sell to me?”
“Because it’s not what my brother would have wanted.”
Denton looked at her and smiled. As if he knew a secret that she didn’t. “You don’t know what your brother would have wanted,” he said with a chuckle.
Myra shrugged. “Whatever you like to think, you’re entitled to that opinion. But I knew my brother better than anyone. No way was he selling. Especially to you.”
The people around them were consumed by their own conversations. Lew tinkled away on the piano keys, rolling from one tune to the next without so much as a break. No one stood near them to hear what was being said. But despite the relative privacy of their conversation, Denton still leaned in close so that his words were strictly between the two of them. The sensation of his breath against her skin made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle—and not with delight. “I see the resemblance between you, especially in the eyes. Your brother had that same look, I am told. Even as he lay on the floor, scared out of his wits, he refused to surrender himself to fate,” Denton said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Myra’s breath caught in her lungs, and for a stretch of time, she did not breathe at all—did not inhale, exhale or move a muscle. Her heart might as well have stopped beating in that moment. Everything around her ground to a standstill, leaving just the two of them at the bar. Denton confessing his part in her brother’s death. Admitting that he was responsible for the murders of Glendon, Celia, Matthew and Maria. That he had taken away everyone who had been precious to her.
She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t say anything in response to what Denton was telling her. All she could do was stand there dumbfounded, paralyzed by shock and fear, hands trembling helplessly at her sides.
Jack Denton murmured, “You must sell to me. It’s the only way. You know what will happen, Miss Hart, if you follow the same course as your brother? If you refuse to give up, if you dig your heels in? Some badman will see you end up in the same plot as the rest of them.”
Myra tried to say something, but her voice caught and the only sound she could make was a kind of dry croak.
Denton leaned in even closer. Spoke even more gently, his words barely audible. “You’d better believe it, woman. I’ll turn you into worm food. . . .”
Myra jerked away from him, suddenly able to move. Denton wore a sick and twisted smirk, knowing that in those few seconds, his words had burrowed down to her very core. Myra took her glass and, without hesitation, tossed the rest of her whiskey in his face.
The conversation and chatter around them stopped dead. Lew stopped playing piano when he noticed what was going on. The entire saloon fell quiet,
the two of them surrounded by silent spectators. Denton pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe his face. “You only get to do that once,” he said.
“You desecrate their memory by standing here,” Myra said. “It is you who should be in the ground, Jack Denton.”
Denton glanced about at their captive audience. “You have made your feelings known,” he sneered, screwing the damp rag up into a ball and tossing it across the bar top. He glared at the people watching them, then headed for the saloon doors. Before he could reach them, however, a man stepped out and blocked his path. “Out of my way!” Denton snarled. He made to simply brush past the man, but then he looked at his face. Saw his eyes. The bruising up his neck where giant hands had grabbed him. “You.”
Ethan stood his ground.
Denton stared at him, trying to place the face. “I guess you’re the new kid in town, lending your assistance to the grieving sister.”
“Something like that.”
“You got a name, new kid?”
Ethan’s face was immovable as granite. “Ethan.”
“Is that it? Just Ethan?” Denton demanded.
“For now.”
Denton turned to look at the townsfolk. “Do you good people see how this newcomer is preventing me from going on my way?”
Sheriff Abernathy pushed his way through the crowd, followed by Deputy Mitchell. “What’s the problem here?”
“No problem, Sheriff,” Ethan said, not looking away from Denton.
“If there’s no problem, kindly move aside for the man,” Abernathy said. “I don’t want an incident.”
Denton scoffed. “There won’t be no incidents, Sheriff. Not just yet anyway.” He leered at Ethan. “So are you going to move out of my damn way or do I have to knock you on your ass?”
Ethan obliged by moving to one side, allowing Denton to get past. The rancher took his time leaving, throwing the saloon doors wide open with force and stepping lazily out into the hazy sunshine.
Abernathy snapped his fingers at Lew. “Hey, old fella, get playin’ again. This is meant to be a wake. Everyone, go back to your drinks, your conversations. Don’t let this spoil nothing. Best you all forget this exchange.”
